"YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD;
A CITY ON A HILL CANNOT BE HID”MATTHEW 5:14

Which city "on a hill" is Jesus referring to? It’s
certainly not San Francisco, or even
Tiberias or Safed, for that matter.
Tiberias in Jesus’ day stretched along the
shore
of the Sea of Galilee, from the hot
springs northwards. And Safed in the
Upper Galilee was not yet a city, only a
fort.

Adapted
from Bible Mapper by itsGila

Map of Galilee -- towns and
villages in Jesus' day

Hippos, a hill with a horse-shaped neck
(admittedly one needs a great deal of
imagination to see this!), across from the
Mount of Beatitudes on the eastern side of
the Sea of Galilee, seems to be our best
candidate. Its white limestone and
marble buildings would have been gleaming
and beckoning in the eyes of a crowd
standing on a western hillside above the Sea
of Galilee, especially as the afternoon sun
dipped down towards the Mediterranean.

Photo:
Gila Yudkin

The ruins of Hippos can be
found at the top of the rounded hill

Hippos belonged to a league of 10 Greek
cities called the Decapolis. Each city
had civic independence from its local ruler
and even held the right to mint its own
coins. Hippos is believed to have boasted a
large theater, an Odeon (a smaller 600-seat
theater for musical performances), a
nymphaeum with fountains dedicated to water
nymphs, and stately pagan temples to Zeus,
Aphrodite and perhaps even Dionysus.

The inhabitants of Hippos (shall we call
them Hippies?) believed that their gods –
and there were dozens – schemed, squabbled,
copulated and manipulated. This is
quite a contrast to the Jewish farmers and
fishermen who believed in One God who
championed the poor, the meek and the
downtrodden.

Photo:
Gila Yudkin

Main Street Hippos from
the Roman? period

From Hippos, perched a thousand feet above
the Sea of Galilee, we have a commanding
view of the area where the man possessed by
demons dwelled among the tombs. Jesus
cast the demons into a herd of swine who
charged down the cliff into the sea to
drown. One would naturally find pigs
on the pagan, (non-kosher) side of the lake.
“So the man went away and began to tell in
the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for
him.” (Mark 5:20) The first city in
the Decapolis the demoniac would have
reached would be Hippos.

Photo:
Gila Yudkin

From Hippos, Tiberias on
the western shore is clearly visible

Not having visited Hippos since excavations
began in the year 2000, I decided to take
advantage of a free day to update myself.
I approached Hippos the traditional way we
always did, from the Golan Heights on the
east. My trusty fire-engine-red
Daihatsu negotiated the many hairpin turns
along the old Syrian/Jordanian border quite
gracefully.

I alternated between observing the old
pre-1967 Syrian bunkers once shielding its
gunmen beside each curve to watching for a
speeding car careening from the opposite
direction. At the top of the ascent my
senses were assaulted first by golden fields
of wheat, and then by a strong whiff of
scallions and garlic.

Finally I turned west onto a deeply rutted
agricultural road which is unfortunately
forbidden to tour buses. On either
side of the road are signs warning, “Danger
mines.” After a steep descent of two
miles, I recognized the protruding black
basalt rocks of Hippos, which did not look
like a horse at all.

Photo:
Gila Yudkin

Approach to the Decapolis
City from the southeast

Photo:
Gila Yudkin

Eastern entrance to the
city of Hippos lies in ruins

Climbing up a path into the city, I found
myself walking along a long stretch of the
original basalt paved avenue, similar to
Main Street, Beth Shean (Scythopolis).
Archeologists have recently uncovered a
number of public buildings, temples or
churches with apses facing east. Many
long reddish and grayish granite columns,
imported from Egypt, were strewn about.

Photo:
Gila Yudkin

Ruins from a public
building at Hippos, perhaps a pagan temple
or church

It’s exciting to walk in solitude through a
site where the archeologists’ spade is
adding flesh to the historical skeleton.
One’s imagination starts to work overtime. I
had read that during the last season, three
clay statues of Aphrodite, each nearly a
foot long, had been discovered.
Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love,
fertility and childbirth. Her temples were
pilgrimaged by young maidens seeking true
love, as well as by pregnant women praying
for a safe birth.

As I rambled, my eyes strayed to the Sea of
Galilee and I thought of the Galilean
fishermen looking across to this
ostentatious metropolis crowned with pagan
temples dedicated to Zeus and Aphrodite.
Then I contemplated the words of the great
historical geographer George Adam Smith:

“The Decapolis city overhanging the
Lake of Galilee which sent its scholars to
Greece and Rome proves that the Kingdom of
God came forth in no obscure corner, but
in the face of the kingdoms of this
world.”

Photo:
Gila Yudkin

Hippos as seen from a
fishing boat sailing the Sea of Galilee

At the present moment, Hippos is not
accessible by tour bus, but hope springs
eternal that the road from the sea up to the
site will be renovated soon. And if
you want to really go off the beaten path in
Galilee, you can book a jeep tour up from
the sea to the Golan Heights which includes
a ramble through Hippos. It’s not
cheap, but intensely memorable and tons of
fun for the young in spirit.

Copyright 2010, 2012 Gila Yudkin. Permission
needed for any reuse.

Gila Yudkin,
who calls herself a Connecticut-born Yankee
living in King David’s court, is always on
the lookout for new angles on ancient sites.
She loves working with groups thirsty for
biblical insight, archeological anecdotes
and old-fashioned fun. She wishes she
could have toured with George Adam Smith in
1880, or been Mark Twain’s tour guide way
back in 1867.

"Let's
ramble through Hippos, a Decapolis City" (as text
without the photos) is one in the series of
free quarerly e-letters sent on request to
tour leaders, pastors, clergy, teachers,
Bible students, colleagues and friends.
If you'd like to receive "Holy Sites: Gila's
Highlights" please
contact
Gila.